


king only

by futuredescending



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Dark Kingsman Block Party, Emotional Manipulation, Fix-It, Harry Hart Lives, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, POV Second Person, Then Break It Again, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7073875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuredescending/pseuds/futuredescending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You pitch forward, not elegantly, and your lips brush his in a flash of softness and warmth and electrifying contact. You soar.</p><p>He pulls back sharply. The look on his face is not what you expect. There is no joy or delight or serene love.</p><p>There is alarm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	king only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InOmniaParatus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InOmniaParatus/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy it! This prompt hooked me in so much. Also, it's probably the meanest thing I have ever written (so far).

You wake up feeling as if you have died and are now buried in the cool, dark earth.

You are certainly swathed in enough bandages to feel like a mummified corpse. Your body is stiff and numb. Your limbs do not obey your commands. Your head feels like it is half-caved in, hollow. For one frightening moment, you worry about soil flooding into your skull, about earth worms crawling through your mouth and nose and eye sockets. The thought, once it manifests, takes hold.

You can’t breathe. You panic. You open your mouth to try and cry out and only feel more soil cascading in, choking you.

“Hey,” says a comfortingly familiar voice near your ear, “It’s okay, Harry. You’re gonna be okay.”

Eggsy’s voice is surprisingly clear, not muffled by the ground at all. You feel the weight of a warm hand on yours. This alone makes you realise you are not, in fact, buried alive.

Once your panic begins to ebb, you start to take in new details: the antiseptic scent in air, the steady beeps and whooshes of multiple medical devices, a certain quality of silence that only hospitals cultivate.

You cannot speak. You cannot open your eyes. You cannot do more than nudge your head a scant millimetre, and even that action is met with a curious feeling of numb distance. You are a very small presence even within your cavernous body. You are helpless.

“I’m here,” Eggsy says. His hand envelops your hand and holds it tight, anchoring you. “Not going anywhere. You can rest now. Just rest.”

You find yourself clinging to those assurances like they are a life vest. You who are adrift in a turbulent sea. They keep you afloat, but more importantly, they promise imminent salvation.

 

*****

 

You survive. Barely.

Between the days-long bouts of unconsciousness, you manage to piece together what happened. You were shot in the head. You were left to rot beneath the Kentucky sun with bits of your brain, blood, and shattered skull haloed around you like a medieval painting. Emergency responders brought you to A&E instead of the morgue. You rode out Valentine’s signal-induced wave by virtue of being deeply unconscious in the ICU where no one was allowed to carry their mobiles. The doctors and nurses there watched in horror as their colleagues slaughtered their patients, their patients' families, and each other. You were discovered by Eggsy and Roxy when they arrived in the States, intending to collect your body. You were flown back to England in a Kingsman-issued medical transport instead.

“Luck,” the doctors tell you.

“More lives than a cat,” Merlin mutters.

You wish you had neither.

You have few motor skills left. Like the aftereffects of a stroke, the right side of your body is without feeling. You still can’t speak. You are missing a left eye and, until the metal plates go in, a sizable portion of the back of your skull.

You are a shattered mess of a human being, body and soul.

 

*****

 

Eggsy doesn’t need to stay by your side. He, in fact, shouldn’t. He is a young and extraordinarily gifted Kingsman agent. He needs to be out in the world and the world needs him. But every time you slowly float back up to consciousness, he is there, an ubiquitous presence. You come to expect him, then you come to need him. You are out of sorts the few times you wake up when he is in the toilet or has been pulled out into the hall for a quiet discussion with others you never see.

You have always enjoyed your solitude, but Eggsy’s presence is a soothing constant when everything else in your life is in chaos. He doesn’t try to engage you in a conversation you can’t hold up, nor does he suffocate you with false assurances or platitudes. He is a quiet, steady rock with gentle eyes and brilliant smiles.

Before, you found him attractive in a way you could almost ignore in light of more pressing matters. Now, you find him breathtaking. He becomes your whole world.

 

*****

 

“This may not be pleasant to think about, but I think your recovery has advanced enough where we should start thinking about next steps,” Merlin tells you.

He is not wrong. You are making great strides, if not actual literal ones, in your healing. You can sit up. You can feel both your feet again, though the right foot only barely. You stay awake for longer periods of time. You can string together enough words so that others can generally grasp the meaning of what you are trying to say. Your right arm is a limp, dead weight at your side. Your left hand is more responsive, but it is not your dominant one.

“Piss,” you tell him, “off.” You are especially proud at having mastered that particular combination of words.

“Harry,” Eggsy lightly chides from his place by your side, but you can see how much he struggles to hide a smile. “Be nice.”

Merlin, though, is long inured to your ‘tantrums’, as he likes to call them. “You may no longer get to be a field agent, but you have decades of experience and knowledge we’d hate to lose. There are several positions in the organisation that are not so physically demanding.”

“No paper,” you say, because you cannot say _paperwork_ and get frustrated when you try and your lips just flap around uselessly. “No hand.”

“Nothing to do with administration,” Merlin assures. “I shudder at the thought. Your handwriting was atrocious even before all of this. Pending you being further along in your recovery, I was hoping you would entertain the notion of taking on a handler position. After all, no one knows the mind of an agent better than a former agent himself.”

 _Former agent_. As if it is a done deal. Then again, when you look down at your emaciated body and dead arm through your one eye, you must concede the odds are against you.

Objectively, you understand how Merlin, and by extension Kingsman, are being generous. You have ceased to provide value. You are, in fact, a drain on their resources in terms of money, time, and more productive personnel.

Ever since you woke up, however, you have only existed from moment to moment. It is all you can handle. Being reminded of an impending future threatens to overwhelm you. You were supposed to go out in a blaze of glory long ago, but now your lifeline has interminably extended, a path that disappears into a dull, grey fog.

You would rather choke on your own tongue than admit to your fear.

 

*****

 

Eggsy brings you back to your home. Eggsy helps you up and down the stairs, in and out of bed, into and out of the taxi between various physician appointments. Eggsy cooks for you. Eggsy cleans up after you. Eggsy helps you bathe. Eggsy brushes your teeth and combs your hair and wipes your arse.

You are humiliated. You want to snap at him that you don’t need his help, but you do. You don’t even have the capability to put that much into words. Your pride is flayed alive each and every day.

Your frustration comes out in barely verbal ways, resorting, instead, to knocking things from Eggsy’s hand or jerking sharply from his touch.

You feel guilt when the hurt flashes across his eyes, and then you feel sad, and then you despair.

You slur, “Sorry,” when what you want to ask is, _Why do you stay?_

 

*****

 

Eggsy watches old films with you and seems to enjoy them. You watch _Waterloo Bridge_ and a luminous Vivien Leigh reflected in his wide, entranced eyes through sidelong glances.

Eggsy plays records from your collection, and you close your eye and imagine holding him close, the two of you, dancing slowly in the middle of the sitting room while the Hollies serenade you.

Eggsy reads books from your library and then takes to reading them to you because the medication makes your vision blurry. He is not the most natural reader, but you are hardly following the story, letting the soundscape of his voice wash over you instead.

Eggsy leans his body all along yours on the sofa, warming you.

Eggsy drapes your useless arm over his shoulders, and you think it’s the best thing that arm has ever done.

Eggsy hugs you and Eggsy touches you, a hand to your shoulder or side. He likes to hold your hand and squeeze it reassuringly. When he is concerned, he cups your cheek to peer closely into your ravaged face.

 

*****

 

One time, Eggsy touches your face and leans in close. His eyes are very green. His lips, swollen from his terrible habit of chewing on them, are slightly parted in anticipation.

You feel it, the connection between the two of you, two souls carved out from the vast emptiness of the universe, made for each other. Eggsy stays by your side because there is no other place he would rather be, and there is no other place you would rather have him.

You pitch forward, not elegantly, and your lips brush his in a flash of softness and warmth and electrifying contact. You soar.

He pulls back sharply. The look on his face is not what you expect. There is no joy or delight or serene love.

There is alarm.

Clearly, you were wrong.

You are mortified, more than you have ever been up until this point. The heat of shame boils in your stomach and crawls up your throat, strangling you. You would gladly die, right here and now, to avoid feeling this excruciating humiliation for one second more.

You want to die.

You open your dumb mouth. You struggle to find the words to apologise, because even if you are in ruins, you are a gentleman. Your mouth makes sounds, but none of them are intelligible. You can’t even form a fucking full sentence and you want this beautiful creature to love you.

Eggsy stops your useless sputtering by leaning forward and kissing you.

Now it is you who are stunned into inaction.

Eggsy kisses you all the harder, as if determined. You are confused. The very real reaction you witnessed only moments before still haunts you, but it swiftly fades from your porous brain the longer Eggsy’s mouth remains pressed to yours.

You manage to convince yourself that you must have been mistaken all along when Eggsy parts your lips with his tongue. You forget the matter entirely when he presses you back against the cushions of the sofa.

 

*****

 

Your recovery comes along faster than even your doctors could have predicted. You can walk with the aid of a cane, even if it is for short periods of time only. Your left hand is stronger, though your right hand remains the same. Your speech improves. Your mind feels clearer.

It is like you are flourishing in the brilliance of Eggsy’s love.

Even Merlin is surprised. His earlier offer, while genuine, had been issued with a significant number of conditions, but now the spectre of possibility shines brighter.

You and Eggsy order curry takeaway to celebrate. You don’t make too much of a mess in feeding yourself. You insist on opening one of your best wines, even if you can only indulge in a few sips.

Eggsy imbibes far more. His cheeks grow alluringly flushed, his eyes bright, his grins easier and wider. He has always been a tactile creature, and when slightly inebriated, becomes even more so.

You haven’t had much of a sex drive for months now, but tonight you feel the first stirrings of arousal. After dinner, you coax Eggsy onto the sofa. He folds into you easily, eagerly kissing back, just a little sloppy. You taste a mixture of marsala and Burgundy on his tongue.

“Let me touch you,” you say, and it only takes a few seconds to get his delayed assent.

He is only a little hard, but you rectify that with your PT-strengthened hand, caressing the body-hot, fleshy length of him until he gasps and closes his eyes and lets you kiss and nip along the column of his neck, tasting the salt of his skin, while you slowly wank him off.

When he comes in spurts over your hand, you smother his gasps with your mouth and swallow his moans, as if each exhalation makes you stronger.

 

*****

 

Now that you’ve had a taste, you hunger for his body. You hunger for life.

Eggsy is...shy. He had no compunction with seeing and touching any part of your body or dealing with its functions during the more helpless days of your convalescence, but he is more hesitant in providing access to his own.

His body is beautiful. It is sculpted and maintained in a manner that would inspire Renaissance artists and writers to create some of their best works. But Eggsy’s confidence is a thing that has been slow to come to fruition, and your previous sins did not help in that regard. You are eager to rectify your mistakes. You must show him how much he is worthy of being loved.

He is more concerned for your health tonight, though. Your energy levels on the next. Your PT session early the next morning on the night after. Babysitting his sister after that. You let him ease through one excuse after another. You are patient, if only for him, because you know he needs time to work through it, until one evening he finally admits, “I ain’t ever done this. I mean, I done it, just...not with a man.”

His nervousness is endearing and the notion of you being the first to have him like this sends a spike of possessive lust through your veins. “We’ll go slow,” you assure him. “We can explore what you like and don’t like.”

You put him on all fours on your bed while you stand and fuck him from behind, because it is the easiest position for your balance and his inexperience. It’s marvelous, still, to watch the smooth play of muscles shift across Eggsy’s back. You rest your right arm at the base of his spine to brace both it and you. It still cannot do much, but you can feel the sweat pooling there beneath your palm. Eggsy keeps his face mashed into the pillow he cradles between his elbows to muffle his grunts each time you drive into him. Your left hand grips his hip hard enough to bruise.

“You’ll have to touch yourself,” you moan regretfully between each slick slide into his body. “Touch yourself.”

Maybe Eggsy doesn’t hear you because he remains unmoving, fingers maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the pillow. You soon forget, too lost in the sensations of his tight, hot arse clenching around your cock. You have not felt this good in a long time, and you eagerly chase that euphoric thread until it pulls and expands you out of your broken body.

After you come inside him, he dutifully helps you unroll the condom off your spent cock. You notice his own dangling limply between his legs with no evidence of climax. “Did you…?”

He cannot seem to look at you. “Sorry I...I don’t think...it was fine and all, but I just don't think I...really liked it?”

“Oh.” You cannot say you aren’t disappointed, but you understand. Not everyone enjoys it, and certainly not least of which are the cleanup efforts involved before and after.

“We don’t have to do that again,” you tell him, though you can’t say why it is a little off-putting when Eggsy appears so relieved.

 

*****

 

Your first day back at Kingsman is bittersweet. You have missed traversing these halls, but you are looking at them now through a new lens. You are no longer addressed as Galahad, though some of the staff still do so out of habit. It feels wrong to wear a suit, so you do not. All of your suits are now too large for your thinned out frame anyway.

You are given a station with a modified setup to accommodate your many new physical disabilities. You are told you will be taking it slow, easing into things. It is, essentially, a trial run for all involved.

You shadow others most of the time. It is far less exciting to be on this end of things, watching through a small computer monitor as other agents go out into the world, narrowly avoiding danger by the skin of their teeth. The feed from their glasses makes you vaguely nauseous and you must excuse yourself.

Kingsman’s handlers are all very good at their jobs, but it requires a certain temperament you are not sure you possess. Still, it is a way to stay a part of the organisation you have dedicated the whole of your life to. You look down at your right hand and concentrate. You think the tips of your fingers move, just a little. Perhaps at the rate things are going, maybe it will be only temporary besides.

 

*****

 

What stimulation and fulfillment you no longer find in your career, you now seek in Eggsy’s body.

You search out and discover all the places across it that make his breath stutter in spite of himself. For how talkative and engaging he is in all his day-to-day interactions, you never imagined him to be so reserved in bed. It is an interesting and invigourating challenge to free him from his self-imposed constraints, to make him cry out and writhe upon your sheets beneath your hand, your mouth, your teeth, your tongue.

He may not enjoy it when you fuck him in the arse, but he lets you fuck him between his thighs. He's not particularly enthusiastic about giving blow jobs, but he strokes you when you guide his hand to wrap around your cock.

It may seem one sided sometimes, but your rotation of medications has significant impact on your sex drive. You find it easier to give, often and generously, to your lover and demand nothing in return.

You consider it a job well done when he is dazed by his own climax, how long it takes for him to return to himself from whatever place his mind has taken him. You may have lost all your other talents and skills, but you still have this. It is enough. It has to be.

 

*****

 

Your progress does not move so fast nor miraculously anymore. You are told that these plateaus can happen from time to time. You are impatient. You are frustrated with how many things in your life remain just out of your reach, figuratively and often literally too.

Your increasing independence, however painstakingly slow it is to come, means Eggsy spends less and less time devoted to your personal care.

You are selfless enough to feel guilty for having monopolised him for so long.

You are selfish enough to miss him terribly when he is finally sent out on missions.

You think being a handler would not be so bad if you could be Eggsy’s, watching the boy you helped transform now come into his own, still having a handhold in his professional life. Merlin, however, forbids it for multiple reasons. The one he tells you is that it would be a potential conflict of interest. The one you hear is that you are nowhere near ready to guide Eggsy through the complex sorts of missions on which he is sent.

 

*****

 

Eggsy leaves, and he comes home for a day here, two days there, sometimes less than 24 hours, before he embarks again. It is as if he feels the need to make up for all that lost time he spent doting on you.

You tell him that the world is not in such a sorry state that he needs to volunteer himself for every mission that comes along. He has nothing to prove. He is an excellent agent, but he will burn himself out if he keeps doing this.

“I just enjoy the work,” Eggsy tells you. “I never knew how much I’d love it, but I do. I really do.”

The length of Eggsy’s missions starts to increase. He is gone for two or three weeks at a time. Once, he is gone for an entire two months, most of which you cannot remember.

When you try, all you recall is a frightening, all-consuming blankness.

The length of his missions and the shorter respite between them means Eggsy’s dwindling time must be shared among more stakeholders: his mates both at Kingsman and from before, his family, even his dog. It means you see him less than ever, and when you do, he is always exhausted, more often than not falling asleep on the sofa within a few hours of sitting down.

Still, you tell yourself you would rather have him snoring away and unconscious beside you than not have him at all. You are grateful. You must be.

 

*****

 

You miss him when he’s gone. You miss him when he sits beside you because he still isn’t there.

 

*****

 

For once, it is Eggsy who comes to you without you having to entreat him to visit. But when you open the door, you can see he is _furious_. He huffs past you almost as soon as there is enough room in which to do so. He rounds on you as soon as you turn the lock.

“Where the hell do you get off saying which missions I ain’t allowed to do?” Eggsy demands.

You are taken aback by the pure venom in his tone and in his face. You stutter for the first time in three months, “I-I don’t know what….”

“NLP missions. You told Merlin I don’t do ‘em. Deep cover exceeding three months? Nope, not them either. Who said you could do that?”

“I only mentioned it in passing. Agents can elect to not...not engage in NLP missions when they are in...in...in long-term, uh, relationships. I-I assumed you hadn’t...hadn’t known, which was why you didn’t request it.” You ramble. You trip and stumble over your words. Never before have you been this inarticulate, but you are caught wrong-footed. “The deep cover...I only told Merlin how much I wished you didn’t have to stay gone for so long. You were running yourself ragged.”

“You don’t get to decide that!” Eggsy shouts.

You flinch.

“And you don’t get to dictate my life anymore!”

You feel the wall at your back and lean heavily against it. Though you are taller than Eggsy by several inches, you feel small, like you are looking up to him. “Forgive me,” you say, “I did not mean to overstep. I thought I was helping. I wish...I only wish you to do well.”

Eggsy’s anger deflates. It strikes fast but leaves just as quickly. He still looks so tired. There are dark circles under his eyes and lines of exhaustion written into his otherwise smooth, youthful skin. Beneath the fading anger and tiredness, there is a flash of guilt. Eggsy’s tell is that he always clenches his jaw and looks away.

“Did you…” you find yourself asking before you can stop, even though you can barely get the question out of your mouth, “...did you want to still go on NLP missions?”

“I want to be the best Kingsman I can be,” Eggsy says, not looking you in the eye. “I shouldn’t be refusing any sort of mission if I’m needed. I’ve already spent a lot of good will.”

 _Caring for you_ , he does not say. He does not need to.

For once, the reminder of your decrepit state of being does not bother you. Not when a darker suspicion is crawling through your heart. You hesitate to think it, to let it take root in your mind, because you sense it will lead to nothing good. It will poison you. It will ruin every good thing that is still left in your life.

You think it anyway. You can’t not. Your heart pounds with the truth: Eggsy is lying.

 

*****

 

Eggsy’s schedule does not change nor slow down, and though you miss him with a longing so fierce that it is sometimes difficult to get out of bed in the morning, you tell yourself to stop being pathetic. You have only delved into handler training half-heartedly at best. You have let your physical recovery slow down because you became complacent.

It is time to be serious.

You will get better in all areas of your life. You will succeed. You will wrest back all the things which were taken from you.

Eggsy will see you for the proud, capable agent you are again. You will win him back. You will win it all back.

 

*****

 

Merlin often calls you a stubborn bastard. You are eager to reaffirm his assumptions. You renew your efforts with physical therapy. You think determined thoughts on getting better. You push yourself harder than you ever have before. You can practically run with a cane now. You can stiffly curl the fingers of your right hand into their palm.

You wring your body out so thoroughly, you fall right asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow. You blessedly do not dream.

Your mind feels sharper than it ever has before. It shows in your training, and even Merlin, who is rarely impressed, grudgingly tells you how well you are doing.

Your heart beats to a steady rhythm that sounds remarkably like the mantra that often goes through your mind. _You will, you will, you will_.

 

*****

 

You progress to chaperoned missions, but you are the handler in charge. You are Kay’s guardian angel. His eyes and ears. You tell him who to fight, where to hide, and when to run. Kay obeys you beautifully and without question. The success rate for the two of you is high. You are what Kingsman calls _an ideal match_.

Kay is one of Kingsman’s newest agents, younger than even Eggsy, but serious where Eggsy has cheek. His face is still astoundingly boyish and he is very good at earning other people’s trust.

He is also incredibly deadly with all manner of knives and is one of Kingsman's best martial artists.

He is a joy to work with, and for once, you feel happiness from something that isn’t Eggsy.

 

*****

 

One day, you are shuffling to the kitchen for a much needed cup of tea when you overhear your colleagues in the middle of a quiet conversation, but not so quiet that you cannot easily hear their words from where you remain unseen around the corner. You would feel guilty for eavesdropping, but then you recognise the voice of Eggsy’s handler.

“He’s on another one tonight. Some Spanish heiress. Lord, who needs porn when you’ve got Kingsman?”

Her friend giggles. “You don’t even have to be a fly on that wall when you’ve got front row seats.”

“We have a game where we try and guess who’s got secret piercings or tats and where.”

“Ooooh, who’s winning?”

You do not find out the answer. You are turning, striding quickly away with blood rushing in your ears.

 

*****

 

You are handling Kay, but you are distracted. You are heartsick. It is difficult to focus. Your hands shake.

The world moves sluggishly. The edges of objects are smeared, leaving trails of light in your vision.

You make a mistake.

You do not notice the guard rounding the corner from the opposite end of the corridor until it is too late. Before you can so much as open your mouth to warn your agent, the guard raises his gun and shoots Kay in the back of the head without hesitation.

The hallway camera shows a spray of blood and brain matter bursting from Kay’s forehead and splattering the white walls. The Kingsman glasses feed is curtained in thick crimson dripping down the screen.

 

*****

 

“We cannot be everywhere at once. We’re only human. We make mistakes,” Merlin tries to console.

“It was an easy catch. I missed it,” you whisper because you no longer possess the strength to speak. “Now a man is dead because of my mistake.”

Another one.

“Harry...” Merlin tries but does not seem to be in possession of any other words of comfort.

“I think we both know I should not be doing this,” you tell him. You try curling the fingers of your right hand into a fist but they only can lightly graze your palm, weak. It has been six months, and that is all they can and ever will be able to do.

Your doctors tell you they think your recovery has come as far as it will ever go. You are not young. Your body will never reclaim what it once was. There are certain limitations you will just have to live with now.

Tellingly, Merlin does not put up further protest. You are both old enough and cynical enough to know that your life at Kingsman is truly over.

 

*****

 

You walk through Kingsman’s halls again. Perhaps you meander. You try to soak in every sensory detail with your limited senses, invoke every fond memory you can recall, but there are distressingly few. You remember the corner of the library where you curled up with Mr Pickle and ended up falling asleep over _Moby Dick_. You remember the supply closet where you carried out an illicit affair with the previous Bedivere. He had been older than you, and worldly. You admired him and looked up to him, even as you loved to suck his cock.

You end up in the gym, remembering all the sparring matches you had with Percival and the previous Lancelot. They had been more than colleagues to you. They had been your friends.

You miss them.

The gym is not empty. There are two agents sparring on the mats right now: Roxy and Eggsy. Eggsy hadn’t even told you he was back in England.

They have been going at it for awhile, sweaty and flushed, eyes glinting almost ferally with competitive exhilaration. Roxy’s style is swift and technically precise. Eggsy’s is looser and inspired by his gravity-defying acrobatics and flexibility. They are well matched and they seem to know it, circling each other like wolves before one or the other strikes out and initiates a flurry of attacks and rebuttals.

Both Roxy and Eggsy are grinning. The expression doesn’t even leave their faces when Roxy surprises Eggsy with a leg sweep, knocking him flat on his back before quickly straddling him.

They grapple for a little while and then pause, staring at each other, panting, chests heaving. Eggsy raises a hand and gently pushes a loose tendril of hair back behind her ear.

In that moment, you realise the connection you thought you had with Eggsy, two perfect matching souls facing the oppressive darkness together, is the connection you now feel sparking wildly between the two of them.

In that moment, you realise that in all your time together, Eggsy never once initiated sex or a single romantic gesture of affection.

In that moment, you realise that though you love Eggsy with every cell and fibre of your being, Eggsy has never loved you and he never will.

 

*****

 

You go home. You drink two very full glasses of scotch and you get quite drunk from it.

It doesn’t do anything to fill the hollowness in your heart, which still feels like an open, gouged out wound in your chest.

You still keep many guns in the house because you are still a paranoid old fool, even if you aren’t able to effectively wield them. It wouldn’t take much skill, however, to press the barrel of one to your temple, maybe jam it into your booze-coated mouth, and finish what Valentine’s bullet had begun so long ago. You have been living on borrowed time for awhile now.

You want to do it, but you are also a coward. Your sense of self-preservation is still too strong. It seems as if it would rather have you live this agonising half-life than afford you relief in death.

You want to cry and leech this unbearable feeling from your body, but your remaining eye remains dry. You are a husk of a man, drained of everything.

At least Kay was afforded the respite of not having seen it coming. At least he cannot come back. From personal experience, you know the alternative is much worse.

Someone knocks on your door, then rings the buzzer. You ignore it at first, but the person does not go away. Then you hear Eggsy’s voice shouting from outside. “Harry! Harry, I know you’re in there. Come on, open up!”

It takes you several long moments to stand and hobble to the door, every step a monumental expenditure of energy. You would usually take a few precious seconds to compose yourself before facing whoever is on the other side, but now you simply don't give a fuck.

When you open the door, Eggsy gives you a stricken look, eyes wide and shining. “Harry. They told me you quit Kingsman. Kay’s dead.”

“Yes, I am aware. I was there,” you say without an ounce of emotion in your voice. You turn and hobble back to your chair with a mind to resume drinking yourself into oblivion.

Eggsy follows you closely. You can feel his stare at your back. It prickles annoyingly. You stop and turn around. “What do you want?”

“Harry, I…” Eggsy starts to say, faltering a little before rallying once more. “You didn’t have to go. You love Kingsman. It’s your life. And I didn't mean for...I don’t want you to go. We still need you.”

You stare at Eggsy. You see the way his eyes gleam with moisture, barely held back from spilling over his cheeks. You see the desperation and pleading and _guilt_ in his face, and you think that you might very well hate him.

You want to hurt him as much as he has hurt you. You want to rend him limb from limb. You want him ruined.

“I want to fuck you,” you tell him.

Eggsy, perceptive as he always has been, must see the finality in your dead eyes and hear the make-or-break brittleness of your tone because he swallows thickly, hesitates, and then reluctantly nods. “Okay,” he says weakly.

You push him over the back of the sofa. You only pull down his trousers and pants far enough to push your dry fingers into his arse, stretching him enough so that you’ll fit. You slick your cock up just enough to make it barely comfortable for yourself.

You line yourself up and you push in. You don’t use a condom.

You feel the way Eggsy grows rigid beneath you, so much so that your entrance has to be hurting him. You see the way his hands tensely clench at the throw pillows. You don’t care.

You fuck him roughly, setting a brutal pace. The whole sofa shifts under the force of your thrusts. Eggsy bites back noises of discomfort, but sometimes a particularly hard push in will force out a choked exhalation from between his tightly closed lips.

You fuck him until you achieve your own completion, pulling out before you have softened and letting the mess drip between his legs. You can’t help but find his thighs luscious. You can’t help but look at him and still love him desperately. You want to scream at him and demand an answer. Why can’t he love you like you love him?

You can’t lose him. You won’t.

You drape your body over his. Your heart beats into his shoulder blade.

You say, “I’ve lost everything, Eggsy. I’ve lost everything but you. I don’t know what I will do if I lose you too.”

Beneath you, you hear Eggsy draw a sharp breath.

“You mustn’t leave me, Eggsy,” you tell him, pressing the words into his ear. “Promise me you won’t leave me.”

And when he remains quiet for too long, you hold him tighter and whisper desperately, “ _Promise me._ ”

Eggsy shudders underneath you. You think his next breath comes out as a sob, but it doesn’t matter, because when Eggsy speaks next, he gasps out, “I promise.”

His body curls in on itself in defeat, but it moulds so seamlessly to yours that way, the two of you, cracked and broken souls, in the great darkness of this existence together.


End file.
